AUSTRALIA has lost the first leg of the World Youth Cup qualification play-off in Auckland tonight, but has picked up a valuable away goal, going down 2-1 to New Zealand, in a rugged encounter.
The LG Young Socceroos took the lead in the 21st minute and held it for most of the game, before the home team came back with two goals within the space of ten minutes, to take the advantage into Sunday's second leg in Coffs Harbour.
LG Young Socceroo striker Kevo Gulesserian put the Australians on the board, running onto a ball which was chipped over the defence by midfielder Luke Wilkshire, and slotting it home past the New Zealand keeper, for a 1-0 scoreline into the half-time break.
New Zealand substitute Jonathan Rowe was only on the field for four minutes when he made his impact on the game however, a powerful strike from outside of the box beating Australian keeper Jess Vanstrattan and rocketing into the top left corner for 1-1 in the 76th minute.
Australia replied immediately, only to see Gulesserian's second attempt ruled out, and then nine minutes later, the LG Young Socceroo defence failed to clear a header which bounced off the post from New Zealand captain Chris Killen, Killen on hand to put the rebound away for the home victory.
"Obviously disappointing, very disappointing, it's the kind of game where we probably never looked like losing and ended up losing, so I guess there's a lesson in there somewhere," said coach Ange Postecoglou after the game.
"They scored a cracker of goal, actually both of their goals came from free kick or corner situations, so we really, we could and should have prevented them.
"I thought it was a good goal by Kevo which was disallowed, and at that stage it would have been a 2-1 game to us and it probably would have been over, but that's the way it went.
"It's a hiccup, and obviously you don't like losing, but it's not back to the drawing board by any means, we should have got more out of this game, and now it's a matter of making sure we make it up on Sunday, and concentrate better at the back on set pieces.
"We'll be assessing things, Mark Byrnes has a bit of a shoulder injury, we'll see how he and everyone else pulls up, we'll have Scott McDonald and Adrian Madaschi available which gives me some options to think about, but the important thing is for the players to get focussed again, and play as well as they did today, without conceding the goals on Sunday." Postecoglou concluded.